Starved Rock State Park is an Illinois state park located in Utica, Illinois, in rural LaSalle County, Illinois, about 75 miles from downtown Chicago. The park is 2,630 acres in size and includes 13 miles of hiking trails, numerous waterfalls (ice falls in winter) and other landforms. The park contains 18 sandstone canyons carved by a combination of surface water runoff and groundwater outflow. Starved Rock itself is a large eroded butte overlooking the Illinois River. French explorers built a fort called Fort St. Louis on the rock in 1682 but had abandoned it by the early 1700s. Starved Rock was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1960.

I took this first trip on the spur of the moment one afternoon recently when I got off work early. I visited a part of the Park where I had never been...Council Overhang, Ottawa Canyon, and Kaskaskia Canyon. The main reason I choose this particular area is that other visitors mentioned they were the only canyons that currently had waterfalls (and they some of the few canyons I had never visited). Of course the sandstone cliffs are always mesmerizing for me and the coolness of the canyons refreshing. It feels, in some ways, like going to another world.

The pictures can be viewed on a map (at the location where they were taken) by clicking on the "Map This" button above. The locations are a bit inaccurate because of the GPS signals bouncing around in the canyons. Also, the pictures are arranged in the order they were taken so you can hopefully get a better sense of what it would be like to be there. Enjoy!

I later added some pictures to this Gallery that were taken on a humid day when the canyons were hanging with mist. Those pictures begin with #53.